Gromatici
Gromatici (from
History
Roman Republic
At the foundation of a
Roman Empire
Under the
The agrimensor could mark out the limits of the centuriae, and restore the boundaries where they were confused, but he could not assign without a commission from the emperor. Military persons of various classes are also sometimes mentioned as practising surveying, and settling disputes about boundaries. The lower rank of the professional agrimensor, as contrasted with the finitor of earlier periods, is shown by the fact that in the imperial period there might be a contract with an agrimensor for paying him for his services.
Late empire
The agrimensor of the later period was merely employed in disputes as to the boundaries of properties. The foundation of colonies and the assignation of lands were now less common, though we read of colonies being established to a late period of the empire, and the boundaries of the lands must have been set out in due form.[8] Those who marked out the ground in camps for the soldiers' tents are also called mensores, but they were military men.[9] The functions of the agrimensor are shown by a passage of Hyginus,[10] in all questions as to determining boundaries by means of the marks (signa), the area of surfaces, and explaining maps and plans, the services of the agrimensor were required: in all questions that concerned property, right of road, enjoyment of water, and other easements (servitutes) they were not required, for these were purely legal questions. Generally, therefore, they were either employed by the parties themselves to settle boundaries, or they received their instructions for that purpose from a judex. In this capacity they were advocati. But they also acted as judices, and could give a final decision in that class of smaller questions which concerned the quinque pedes of the Lex Mamilia (the law setting which boundary spaces were not subject to usucapio), as appears from Frontinus.[11]
Under the
Writers and works
The earliest of the gromatic writers was Frontinus, whose De agrorum qualitate, dealing with the legal aspect of the art, was the subject of a commentary by Aggenus Urbicus, a Christian schoolmaster. Under Trajan a certain Balbus, who had accompanied the emperor on his Dacian campaign, wrote a still extant manual of geometry for land surveyors (Expositio et ratio omnium formarum or mensurarum, probably after a Greek original by Hero), dedicated to a certain Celsus who had invented an improvement in a gromatic instrument (perhaps the dioptra, resembling the modern theodolite); for the treatises of Hyginus see that name.[1]
Somewhat later than
According to Mommsen, the collection had its origin during the 5th century in the office of a vicarius (diocesan governor) of Rome, who had a number of surveyors under him. The surveyors were known by various names: decempedator (with reference to the instrument used); finitor, metator or mensor castrorum in republican times; togati Augustorum as imperial civil officials; professor, auctor as professional instructors.[1]
The best edition of the Gromatici is by Karl Lachmann and others (1848) with supplementary volume, Die Schriften der römischen Feldmesser (1852). The 1913 edition of Carl Olof Thulin contains only a few works. The 2000 edition of Brian Campbell is much broader and also contains an English translation.[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gromatici". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 612. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, vol. 1, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, pp. 71–72
- ^ Cicero, De Lege Agraria contra Rullum ii. 13
- ^ Plautus, Poenulus Prolog. 49
- ^ Cicero, Philippics, xi. 12, xiv. 10
- ^ Dig. 50. tit. 13. s.l.
- ^ Frag. Vat. § 150
- ^ Hyginus, p. 177, ed. Goes.
- De Re Militariii. 7
- ^ Hyginus, De Controvers. p. 170
- Frontinus, pp. 63, 75, ed. Goes
- ^ vi. 34, xii. 28
- ^ Goesius, p. 344
- ^ Goesius, p. 343
- ^ Carsten Niebuhr, vol. ii. appendix 2
- ^ Jean-Baptiste Dureau de la Malle. Economie Politique des Romains, vol. i. p. 170
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. London: John Murray.
Further reading
- Campbell, Brian. 1996. "Shaping the Rural Environment: Surveyors in Ancient Rome." Journal of Roman Studies 86:74–99.
- Campbell, J. B. 2000. The Writings of the Roman Land Surveyors: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.
- Classen, C. Joachim. 1994. "On the Training of the Agrimensores in Republican Rome and Related Problems: Some Preliminary Observations." Illinois Classical Studies 19:161-170.
- Cuomo, Serafina. 2000. "Divide and Rule: Frontinus and Roman Land-Surveying." Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 31A:189–202.
- Dilke, Oswald Ashton Wentworth. 1967. "Illustrations from Roman Surveyors’ Manuals." Imago Mundi 21:9–29.
- Dilke, Oswald Ashton Wentworth. 1971. The Roman Land Surveyors: An Introduction to the Agrimensores. Newton Abbot, UK: David and Charles.
- Duncan-Jones, R. P. 1976. "Some Configurations of Landholding in the Roman Empire." In Studies in Roman Property. Edited by M. I. Finley, 7–24. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
- Gargola, Daniel J. 1995. Lands, Laws and Gods: Magistrates and Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
- Lewis, Michael Jonathan Taunton. 2001. Surveying Instruments of Greece and Rome. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
- Nicolet, Claude. 1991. "Control of the Fiscal Sphere: The Cadastres." In Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. By Claude Nicolet, 149–169. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.